Pigeons, the most cosmopolitan animal of them all.

Well, I don’t have pictures to show you yet, but basically Nepal is insane. It’s the dirtiest place I’ve ever been. Litter laws? No. Garbage in the streets? Yes. (Literally: garbage in garbage bags in spread out piles.) Also innumerable stray dogs, some cows, and a few chickens here and there. Monkeys in certain areas. And of course there are pigeons everywhere.

It’s also monsoon season, so it’s often rainy. Although as far as I can tell, monsoon season in Kathmandu isn’t significantly rainier than Portland. But the rain means it’s also not super hot and sunny, which is a good thing for me. (I hate the heat, and in the heat, I hate the sun.)

Anyway, bitching aside: it’s been fun so far. I’ve seen some really awesome stuff: lots of temples and stupas, Hindu and Buddhist. I don’t want to say much more before I get home and can upload pictures, though.

Nic’s friends from India are visiting for a few days, which has been both fun and stressful. They don’t seem to really know what they want as far as being a tourist goes. It’s weird, we’ll go somewhere, ask them if they want to walk around, and they say yes, and then literally walk around for ten minutes and want to leave. They want to eat Behari Indian food (not just Indian, but Behari Indian, since they’re from the Behar region of India). I don’t really get it. But they’re really nice and it’s been fun and interesting going to some of the temples with them, since one of them is Hindu and one is Muslim.

And for the past few days, I’ve been, of course, finishing grading and writing course performance reports for students. Well, it’s paying for half of this trip, so why not.